That was by far the most tweeted-about telecast of the week ended Aug. 25, about 28 times more than its nearest competition. The two runners-up in the Twitter activity rankings were also MTV shows: Last Monday's episode of "Teen Wolf" with 662,300 tweets and the "2013 VMA Pre-Show" with 467,200.

MTV had four of the 10 most tweeted about shows for the week. The fourth was "Catfish: The TV Show" at No. 7, behind AMC's "Breaking Bad."

Also causing some commotion was Friday's "Today" show, which featured a performance by the teen pop group One Direction.

For the VMAs, the Twitter deluge was not necessarily positive, particularly for Cyrus, who performed "We Can't Stop" and was joined by Robin Thicke for a rendition of "Blurred Lines." She danced with a foam finger, twerked with giant teddy bears and stripped to her underwear.